How a gentle giant paid with his life in contested grab for family farm

March 23 2002

Last Monday Terry Ford became, by most counts, the 10th white farmer to lose his life to the cause of land reform in Zimbabwe.

Early that morning, after another night of fear, his neighbours emerged from their own properties and found his body tied to a tree outside his 400-hectare Gowrie Farm at Norton, 40 kilometres west of Harare.

The 55-year-old cancer survivor, described by friends as a "gentle giant", had been tortured, severely beaten and finally shot through the head.

The police refused to respond to his repeated distress calls during the night, but turned up later that day to pick up the body.

Squeak, an aged Jack Russell, briefly became world-famous when he was photographed standing guard over his master's corpse. "At least he tried," one of Mr Ford's neighbours remarked.");document.write("

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Harry Munro, another neighbour, was among those who discovered the body. As it happens, he was also present in November 2000, when Mr Ford's troubles really began.

Mr Ford's beloved aunt - who had lived in a house on his property - had recently died, and news had got around.

"This big Mercedes pulled into the farm, followed by a seven-tonne truck carrying about 40 people, all singing and dancing," Mr Munro recalled.

"Out gets Sabina Mugabe. Terry knew her, because she used to sell second-hand clothes around the district before her brother became president. She was with Mrs Rusiki, the resident war vet leader in our area. She said that she knew that Terry's aunt had died and she had come to take over the farm," Mr Munro said.

"She said we must walk her around the property and the house. She said she wanted the furniture as well, then she drove off."

Sabina Mugabe, elder sister of President Robert Mugabe and an MP for his ruling ZANU-PF party, said she was assuming ownership of the property under her brother's "fast track" land-reform program.

At the time, this scheme aimed to end white dominance of the large-scale commercial farming sector by seizing about a third of Zimbabwe's 4,500 commercial farms and redistributing them to black peasants.

Mr Mugabe has since raised his target to 100 per cent and reaffirmed his commitment to the campaign after his disputed re-election last week.

It turned out to be the last they saw of Sabina Mugabe, but her claim was taken up by one "Wamba" - his nom de guerre - a veteran of the struggle against white minority rule. Invading Gowrie Farm at the head of a band of unemployed youths, Wamba ordered Mr Ford to stop planting his crops - wheat and maize - or else his tractors and machinery would be burned.

Constantly harassed and unable to farm, Mr Ford stopped sleeping in his house and moved into town.

Two weeks ago he took up a job as a groundskeeper at a school in Harare.

By chance, Mr Munro was also present three weeks ago when the story of Gowrie Farm took another turn. He was checking on the property with Mr Ford when an army colonel arrived and said that he, too, was taking over the farm.

He had an official piece of paper, stamped by the Minister for Agriculture, saying Mr Ford must clear off.

"We were arguing with this guy when who turns up but Wamba," Mr Munro said. "He came up dragging along his old .303 rifle after him.

"He got in this big row with the colonel, who was a young colonel, saying he was too young to have fought in the liberation struggle and the farm could not be his."

The colonel's men pointed their rifles at Wamba, who hijacked Ford's utility truck and went off to consult higher authorities.

The police recovered the vehicle two days later but told Mr Ford not to press charges, as the episode had been "a mistake".

Whatever happened, Wamba was not in a good mood. Shortly afterwards he decided to send his followers to occupy the house of Mr Ford's late aunt.

"I think that was really the beginning of the end for Terry," Mr Munro said.

"He kept the house as a kind of shrine to his aunt and he was really upset when these guys just moved themselves in. After that he couldn't go to the farm without having rows with Wamba. There was real bad blood between them after that."

On Sunday, Mr Ford went back to his property to clean up the house because his son, Mark, was arriving from New Zealand the next day.

Shortly before midnight he called neighbours to say that he had been attacked by the "settlers", but he had called the police and thought he had driven them away.

He was still optimistic when he was last heard from shortly before 2am.

Mark Ford heard about his father's murder when he got off the plane in Harare later that morning. His sister, Su Ford, who lives in Melbourne, heard it on the news.

Unusually for such cases, the police decided to mount an investigation. Six people have been arrested, including a young man who reportedly matches forensic tests performed on the murder weapon, Mr Ford's own revolver.

Wamba and his superior, "Mrs Rusiki", fled. Police found Wamba's old Lee Enfield rifle hidden in his house.

The dog, Squeak, has been adopted by Mr Ford's girlfriend, who lives in Harare. Nobody is living on Gowrie Farm, and in the shops of Zimbabwe you cannot buy maize or bread.

"You know, I've heard that the Government have now taken Gowrie off the list of farms for seizure," Mr Munro said. "Terry had a tobacco farm right beside it, and he offered them that instead."